5 Branding Must-Haves For Your Email Marketing Campaign

Email marketing is an opportunity to create one-on-one bonds with consumers and in our experience, when created correctly, can have the highest ROI of any marketing campaign. When designing your newsletter it is extremely important to stay on brand so consumers recall your brand and know you are a trusted source. Here are 5 branding must-haves to create trust, authority and reinforce that your brand can contribute value to the lives of your consumers:

1. Personality and Voice: Is your brand serious or playful? Scientific or colloquial? Whatever your defined personality, it must be leveraged throughout all of your brand touch points. I’ve witnessed some brands opt for a more youthful tone in this medium, deducing that internet users skew younger, only for them to realize that they are abandoning their values and core consumer group. Stay true to your brand and make sure your tone is representative of your personality and values. Consumers will notice the difference.

2. A Consistent Template: Your email marketing template is an opportunity to reinforce who you are as a brand and why consumers should trust you. The human brain is hardwired to recognize patterns, and these pattern recognitions are the basis for branding. Consumers will know, though they may not be able to articulate, when something does not adhere to your brand standards. Thus, they may not be able to draw the parallel to your brand, and you might miss out on a potential customer. When creating your email marketing template refer to your brand standards. Are you using your logo correctly? Are the typefaces consistent? Are you using your correct color palette? Do the buttons and designs match your website or other branded collateral? Make your email marketing campaign instantly recognizable by reinforcing your brand standards and sticking to them.

3. A Branded Preview Pane: You’ve spent all this time working on a beautiful template, and you’ve forgotten about the preview pane! If you haven’t branded the top third of your email message to be viewed in a preview pane, consumers are going to get a less-than-stellar first impression of your brand, and will potentially delete you. Be sure to include your logo in your preview pane as subscribers are more likely to open emails from brands they know. You should also utilize this area to hook consumers in with compelling copy and imagery. This section is basically the “elevator pitch” of email marketing and determines whether you’ll get read, or deleted. Use this section to give a succinct overview of what’s ahead, and be sure to include a call-to-action so consumers know what to do.

4. Branded Landing Pages: Whether it’s a sign up page or the unsubscribe page, ensure that the experience is consistent throughout for consumers. Elements should be consistent on the page so the consumer knows where to find common items. Furthermore, the look, feel and tone should be consistent with the rest of your brand value assets.

5. A Consistent Style of Imagery: Many brands go to great lengths to keep their assets consistent and somehow trip up when it comes to imagery style. When selecting images, refer to your brand standards, especially your brand personality. What mood and tone are these images meant to convey? Do all the images you’ve selected convey the same attributes? If you are using black & white photography, ensure you use that everywhere. If hand drawn illustrations more effectively convey who you are, use that consistently as well.

Email marketing is the fastest way to get in front of consumers and is an opportunity to reinforce your brand, so above all, make sure you are consistently on brand. The more consistent you are, the more likely consumers are to remember and trust you, and, the more likely they are to complete a transaction.

This is a guest post by Amina AlTai, co-founder and marketing director at Imagemme, a NYC branding and packaging design agency.

Download our latest eBook

Your email list is your most valuable asset. Learn 57 tips for building it today!
Download